Those Who Fight
by Astarael00
Summary: One shot. An up-close and personal account of everyone's favorite battle.


"This is going to hurt," Hope prophesied. There was a darkness to his tone uncharacteristic of his age, and the words rang a shade too true.

The older fighters around him, however, either shrugged or pretended not to hear. If they wanted to get through the pass before nightfall, there was no way between or around the two gigantic creatures battling it out not far away. They would have to join the fight.

Against both sides.

"If we all go for the toothed cat thing first," Snow offered, "we can gang up on the behemoth."

"And give the behemoth plenty of time to recover itself and slaughter us," was Lightning's blunt response. "Fang, Vanille, how much do you know about Megistotherians? If we attack the behemoth first, will it help us?"

"Hard to say," the two chorused. They grinned at each other briefly before Fang continued, "If we get in its way, it'll have no problem crushing us, f'course. Other than that, it's really up to whether it sees us or the behemoth as the real threat." The hunter grinned to show her canines, adding, "Me, I'd peg _us_ as the threat, but some judge strength by size."

Sazh cast an amused glance at her rather outsized lance, but his tone was serious as he added his input: "I don't think it's worth the risk to gang up on one of 'em, myself. For all we know, they'll _both_ decide we're the bigger threat - or the most annoying - and'll gang up just long enough to kill us first. I say we divide and conquer."

Lightning nodded thoughtfully, turning to look at the still-raging battle. Neither of the incensed creatures appeared even tired, much less injured. However, they did appear engrossed in their battle. At least the - her - little human band of misfits would get the jump on them.

"Anyone else?" she asked. Unless someone came up with a brilliant plan right about now, Hope was right. This was going to hurt.

There were no takers. Snow punched a palm with his other fist, Fang twirled her lance into ready position, Vanille unfolded her weapon, Sazh scratched the back of his, well, hair, and Hope grimaced and pressed his lips together.

Lightning suppressed a sigh and nodded grimly. "Much as I hate to split up the party, I agree with Sazh. The less risk of being backstabbed, the better; and we can't afford to let the behemoth get a second wind. Fang, Sazh, you're with me on the behemoth. Snow, cover Hope and Vanille as you guys handle the 'toothed cat thing.'"

Snow laughed and mock-saluted, clapping Hope on the shoulder as he turned toward the fight. Vanille nodded with slightly less perkiness than usual, but her step was light as she joined her assigned half-team.

The other half-team passed around nods and started after them. The walk was a short one, but Fang couldn't resist a quick jab, "So, fearless leader. What's the plan if the behemoth does stand up?"

Light snorted. "Don't get sliced, don't get punched, don't get stomped, and for Etro's sake don't do anything stupid."

"Aren't the first three kinda the same as the last one?"

"Not in your case. Now be quiet. It's time."

As one, the two of them leapt into battle, with Sazh providing the initial break and then covering fire as they closed in. Lightning reached the beast slightly ahead of Fang, and took advantage of its dazed state to launch it straight up in the air. Both of them followed it up and laid into it as fast as they could. Sazh, still on the ground and unwilling to fire lest he hit someone, immediately switched to Saboteur and started loading up the beleaguered behemoth with every status effect in the book.

At some point in the seemingly timeless floating, gravity began to reassert its hold on the group in the air. Seeing as how the behemoth was heavier, and had gone up first, it was the first to start to fall. Lightning and Fang both took advantage of this: aiming their weapons and themselves, they managed to sink their blades deep into weak spots on the behemoth's back as they landed on top of it.

The creature roared in pain, shaking its entire body to try to get them off. Unfortunately for it, they instinctively held on to their weapons, and as it threw them around, the sharp blades shifted in its back. By now Sazh had switched back to offense; as the creature roared a second time, he filled its gaping mouth with lead.

With a gurgle, the king behemoth crashed to its belly in front of the gunman. After waiting a few seconds to make sure it stayed motionless, he turned around to check on the other group. Lightning and Fang were still on the monster's back, cursing more or less quietly as they worked their weapons free.

As soon as both weapons came loose, they watched with distant horror as the deep gashes left behind immediately closed up. Throwing each other grim looks, they hopped off the rising back. Lightning switched into Medic quickly, tossing around a few Cures to heal minor cuts before switching back to Ravager. Fang switched to Sentinel and dropped into a wary stance, not yet needing to invoke any skills. Except maybe one. "HEY, UGLY! YOUR MOTHER WAS A JACKRABBIT!"

(Lightning made a mental note to ask her what a jackrabbit was, later.)

The other team of three, in the meantime, was almost finished. Following Sis' not-really-an-order, Snow had adopted Sentinel right from the start, blocking punishing swipes from the huge cat with his comparatively tiny arms and a far less toothy grin. Hope and Vanille switched between lobbing spells at the Megistotherian (fire, they decided, when one of their test bolts made it flinch), and keeping Snow's strength up with a few Cures.

After just a few seconds, the poor thing had given up on attacking entirely, and was yowling and rolling around like mad in a vain attempt to put out the constantly re-ignited bonfire that was its fur. Unfortunately for the team, the 'poor thing' had no qualms about _where_ it rolled, which meant the huge flailing mass of burning fur and sword-sized teeth and claws was an even greater threat than the calculated swipes had been.

Seeing the shift in battle, Snow formed a new plan instantly. "Vanille!" he shouted, and she when looked over at him, he pointed up at the ridge above them. She nodded immediately and took off, headed for the higher ground. As for Hope, he swung the kid up on his shoulders and stopped ducking in favor of blocking and running. This left Hope free to continue casting - as long as he was careful not to set Snow's head ablaze. (It was fiery enough already.)

With Hope unleashing spells as fast as he could given his jarring ride, and Vanille raining down ironic hellfire from above, it wasn't long before the Megistotherian realized it was going to die.

Giving its last ear-splitting yowl, it threw itself directly at Snow, a huge, toothy, desperate fireball. Snow, though every instinct told him to throw Hope behind himself and stop it, instead dropped to his stomach yelling "AERO!"

Hope and Vanille immediately launched the fastest Aero spells they'd ever cast in their lives. Redirected upward, the fireball sailed _just_ over Hope's ducking head - past Sazh, who dived out of the way - and slammed directly into the behemoth.

As it staggered back, the whole group ganged up on it - Vanille switching to Saboteur and then to Synergist when nothing worked, Hope continuing with fire bombardment after seeing the effect of the giant fireball, Snow setting Hope down to charge in with his fists, Sazh coming up out of his roll with guns blazing, Fang dropping her guard to attack, and Lighting springing forward to slash at its buckling knees.

It took longer than anyone liked to bring it down, but thanks to the distraction provided by the fireball, it didn't have much time to counterattack. A single blind swipe was all it managed as it crashed to the ground - but the lucky swing slammed Light into Fang into Snow, narrowly missed Sazh with the edge of the blade, and sent the three front-line fighters flying toward Hope.

It took them longer than usual to regain their footing, since they had to be careful not to hit each other as they flipped (Lightning), twisted (Fang), and skidded (Snow) back into the world of friction. Thankfully they recovered themselves before they could slam into the shocked silver-haired boy, who to his credit only blinked once before recovering.

Vanille had managed a few Protects before the swipe, but there was still some ill-concealed coughing as the three melee fighters reintroduced air into their lungs and checked their ribs.

Finding everything in at least working order, the three rushed at the fallen giant, intent on doing enough damage to keep it down. All six of them threw everything they had at the behemoth, until eventually its struggle to get up ceased abruptly; it groaned and shuddered and lay still next to the charred carcass of its former opponent.

For a long, long moment, the world was silent.

Then Vanille let out a tired cheer, with Hope and Snow quick to join her. Sazh mumbled something about being too old, while Lightning and Fang stayed tense a few moments longer. When it became apparent that the behemoth had no third wind, they relaxed, tossed relieved grins at each other, and headed toward the carcasses to see what materials could be salvaged.

Seeing them, Vanille ran down to help, Hope brought everyone back up to health with a few quick Curas before joining the effort, and Sazh muttered something about his knees but pulled a hunter's knife from nowhere and started in on whatever was at eye-level.

The four who weren't Fang or Vanille tried not to think about dinner.


End file.
